19" LCD Monitors Roundup. Part IX.. Page 12

The new round of 19-inch LCD monitors testing will focus on the solutions using TN matrixes. We will look at a few widescreen models as well as those with the traditional 5:4 screen ratio from Acer, ASUS, NEC, Samsung and ViewSonic.

The default values of brightness and contrast are 100% and 80%, respectively. I lowered them both to 37% to achieve a 100nit brightness of white. Light halftones merge into the same color at 90% and higher contrast. Darks are reproduced correctly at any settings. Color gradients are displayed correctly, too. The brightness is regulated by means of pulse-width modulation of the power of the backlight lamps at a frequency of 344Hz.

The average brightness uniformity is 4.9% on white and 4.1% on black. The corresponding maximums are 13.3% and 16.1%, respectively. These results should be satisfactory for most users. The backlight has a cross-like brighter zone, quite a typical thing for many monitors, but it won’t be conspicuous at such low values.

The gamma curves look good and go close to each other but differ slightly from the theoretical curve.

The curves almost coincide at the reduced settings, but all go higher than the theoretical curve, resulting in a whitish image on the screen.

The color temperature setup is far from ideal but the temperature dispersion is within a reasonable 1000K in every mode.

As was to be expected, the SyncMaster 940N has the same color gamut as every other monitor with ordinary backlight lamps.

The response time average is 15.4 milliseconds (GtG) with a maximum of 32.8 milliseconds. The monitor is just fast as other RTC-less models.

Again, the monitor is no different from others in terms of contrast ratio. It is quite satisfactory for most applications.

So, the Samsung SyncMaster 940N is a good inexpensive monitor with a very functional stand you can rarely see in monitors of its class. It is ergonomic and features a very uniform backlight. This model is actually free from serious drawbacks if you make allowances for the category it belongs to.